Apple's iPhone Is Helping T-Mobile Secure Market Share In The United States
by Joe White
October 1, 2013
In a new report from Kantar Worldpanel, it is noted that Apple's iPhone is continuing to help U.S. carrier (or rather, self-proclaimed "uncarrier") T-Mobile increase its share of smartphone sales in the United States.
It's been over five months now since T-Mobile's "gangbusters" iPhone launch day, and one month following the launch the carrier noted that it had sold 500,000 of Apple's smartphones.
Now, however, we're hearing from Kantar Woldpanel (via AppleInsider) that the iPhone is expected to have contributed to an increase in T-Mobile's share of U.S. smartphone sales. During the three months leading up to August 2013, T-Mobile's market share grew to 13.2 percent, which is up 1.1 percent from the previous period.
Kantar director Dominic Sunnebo said:
When iOS first debuted on T-Mobile in mid-April, the majority of sales came from consumers upgrading from a featurephone to their first smartphone. However, looking at those who purchased an iPhone in the August period, 56% of those consumers came from another smartphone, including 38.5% from an Android device.Furthermore, since Kantar Worldpanel's research doesn't include the recent iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c sales, which were impressive, you can bet that T-Mobile's share of U.S. smartphone sales has further increased during the present period. Kantar also considered the iPhone's market share more generally in both the United States and in Japan. While the former country saw Apple hold on to 39.3 percent of the U.S. smartphone market ahead of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c launch, the iPhone's share of Japan's smartphone market is more impressive. Here, the iPhone holds 48.6 percent of Japan's market, and is ahead of Android (though only just). Kantar observes, however, that a recent deal with NTT DoCoMo - Japan's largest carrier - combined with September's iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c launch, could see this figure increase during the present period. We'll keep you updated with further information as we receive it. In the meantime, see: Yahoo Launches Second Sign-In Verfication And App Passwords For User Accounts, Reset Network Settings To Fix Failing iMessages In Apple's iOS 7, and Dropbox For Mac Updated With Automatic Screenshot Upload And iPhoto Importer.